


Joyeaux

by CosetteFauchelevent



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Christmas fic, F/F, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-20
Updated: 2013-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-05 06:34:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1090751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CosetteFauchelevent/pseuds/CosetteFauchelevent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It didn't matter how she'd treated her as a child, it was Christmas, and moreover, it was cold, and Cosette Fauchelevent wasn't going to leave Eponine Thenardier out on the streets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Joyeaux

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bhaer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bhaer/gifts).



The winter wind biting was a figure of speech that always seemed to become a mystery to Cosette Fauchlevent during the warmer months – it was a sensation long forgotten when sweat ran down the curve of her spine in the high heat of summer, or even when all that was required to keep her comfortable was a light spring shawl, but several days before Christmas, Cosette was reminded, violently, that winter’s bite was, in fact, worse than it’s bite. She clutched her coat closer around her, gloved and numbing hands fumbling to button it higher, closing it over her throat and tightening her scarf. Father had darted ahead of her to help an elderly woman struggling with bags overflowing with bread and vegetables for her family’s Christmas Eve feast, no doubt. Sweet Papa, always jumping to help others, even on the frigid walk home from their evening mass at the abbey where Cosette had spent her childhood. Perhaps she would become a nun yet, Cosette mused, it was warm in the abbey, at least. With a frustrated growl, Cosette bit upon the fingertip of her glove and wrenched it off of her lithe hand with her teeth, clawing, now, in desperation at the buttons of her coat like an animal. A very, very cold animal.

“Spare a sous, ma’moiselle?”

The voice made Cosette stop suddenly enough that she stumbled, and she spun around, caught off of her guard, “Ah...oui, just a moment...” she replied, voice tight and anxious, silently praying that the frail looking gamine who approached didn’t have a gang behind her. Cosette was most certainly not in the mood to be robbed, “I...I seem to have misplaced my coin purse...”

“S’alright, ma’moiselle. I got time.”

Cosette’s hands trembled both from the cold and from nervousness as she fumbled through first the pockets of her coat, then the hidden pockets of her gown, the gamine’s eyes boring a hole into her.

“If y’don’ have it ma’moiselle, it’s alright. It’s Christmas, a bourgeois thing like you’s probably been out buyin’ trinkets all night.”

“I-I haven’t I swear,” Cosette found herself stammering as she replied, “I want to help you. I just cannot find my coin purse.”

The gamine stepped closer and Cosette instinctively took a step back, causing the other girl to laugh humourlessly, “I ain’t going to hurt you, ma’amoiselle, just wanted to get a better look at you.”

“A...better look at...at me?”

“I know you from somewhere, you pretty little slip of a thing, hold still,” Cosette was even more taken aback by the girl’s words than by the fact that she was so close to her, she was practically standing on top of her. The other girl’s sunken brown eyes roamed over Cosette’s face and Cosette found a blush rising to her cheeks. The gamine wore neither coat nor a sufficient shawl, but warmth radiated off of her body and Cosette felt it in her very core.

Quiet, for a long moment. A too long moment, and then: “Look what you’ve gone and become...”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re Cosette, ain’t you?”

Cosette’s heart dropped into her stomach, “How do you know my name?”

“I see you’re still as much an innocent little doe as you were when we were children.”

The gears and cogs of Cosette’s mind ground to an unceremonious halt, and her eyes widened, “ _Éponine_?”

“Guess I’ve changed more than I thought.”

“My god! Éponine, what are you doing out here?”

“S’where I live.”

“But...the inn!”

“My father lost it. Gambling. Stupid git.”

“Éponine, aren’t you freezing out here?”

Another sharp, mirthless laugh, “’Sette, do I look like I have a choice in the matter? I have nowhere else to go.”

Barely a second’s hesitation and Cosette clasped Éponine’s hand in her own, “Yes, you do. Come with me.”

 

*****

 

“M’sieur, I swear, this ain’t necessary,” Éponine tried to stay Cosette’s father, Monsieur Fauchlevent’s, hand as he piled yet more blankets upon Cosette’s bed. It had been determined, after some debate, that Éponine would stay at Rue Plumet, and she could share Cosette’s room until a suitable one could be made up for her. A hot meal and a hotter bath had made her feel human for the first time in years, and even the impossibly soft night gown that she wore (borrowed, of course, and she swam in it) was a luxury. She would sleep in a bed – that was still beyond comprehension.

“Nonsense,” replied the old man with a warm smile, “It is a cold night, and we cannot have either of you falling ill.”  
(It was a foreign experience, to say the very least, to have someone worrying for her well-being. And not just one, two someones!)

Cosette burrowed into a blanket, “I swear, the chill has followed us home, Éponine!”

Home. Did this pretty little bourgeois two-a-penny thing really consider her a part of her home already? She’d crossed their threshold not two hours ago. Monsieur Fauchelevent must have seen the very thoughts behind her eyes, and his smile gave him away in his knowledge. He tossed a few more logs on their fire, and bid them good night.

“Are you just going to stand there and look at me ‘Ponine?” Cosette laughed softly, and it was like music, the little lark singing, “Come get in bed! You’ll be an icicle soon enough if you don’t!”

Éponine, however, crossed her arms over her chest in reply, “Why’re you so kind t’me, huh?”

“...what?”

“I was nothing but awful to you when we were children. Why did you take me in? Why are you loaning me a nightgown? Why are you letting me sleep in a bed? In your bed? Why?”

Cosette leaned up on her elbows, dumbfounded, “Éponine...”

“I don’t need your charity!”

“It’s Christmas, Éponine! We all need a friend at Christmas!”

As much as Éponine tried to glower and gristle and insist that everything was unnecessary, that she didn’t need Cosette, or her kindly old father, or the food or the home or the fire or the nightgown and even the bed, but it struck her suddenly, and without penitence, that she wanted these things. She wanted Cosette’s laugh and her father’s warm smile. She wanted to make it through the winter. She wanted to live, not just survive, any longer.

“Please, ‘Ponine,” Cosette’s voice was quiet, and strained, “Just...come get into bed...”

The chill that hung around Éponine seemed broken, finally, by the other girl, and slowly, she slipped between the covers beside her, “If my hostess demands,” she teased, gently tapping the end of Cosette’s button nose with her spindly finger, bringing the smile back to Cosette’s face. That smile, Éponine decided, could warm any who were lucky enough to see it, even through the coldest winter.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy holidays, bhaer! I'm Lexi (lark-rather-than-dove on tumblr), and I was your Les Mis Fic Exchange Secret Santa! I hope you enjoyed it, and I hope your holidays are merry and bright!


End file.
